In honor of Yoshida-san allowing marriage in the game to happen regardless of race, origin, state, and gender, Rough Trade Gaming Community (the world's largest LGBT guild) wanted to provide a video of thanks. We also want to remember Erotes, one of our own players who was tragically murdered in the Calgary stabbings a month before this video took place. Even when tragedy affects our community, there's still a reason to keep on marching.

Keep on being fabulous, gamers. If you are tired of hate speech and are 18+, please fill out an application and join us on Gilgamesh. You can be you in your own fantasy. rtgc.enjin.com/ffxiv

Final Fantasy XIV is a respected trademark of Square-Enix, Copyright 2010-2014. Rough Trade Gaming Community supports Final Fantasy XIV as players but does not represent or reflect the views of Square-Enix or its affiliates.

President Barack Obama has announced his intent to appoint Joseph Falk of Miami a member of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Falk, 60, is former board chairman of SAVE and a public policy advisor at Akerman in Miami. He grew up in Coral Gables and currently is active in Charlie Crist’s gubernatorial campaign.

From the White House:

Joseph Falk has been a Public Policy Advisor at Akerman LLP since joining the firm in 2003. Previously, he was President and CEO of the Metropolitan Mortgage Company in Miami, Florida, where he worked from 1978 to 2001. Mr. Falk is currently Vice Chairman of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in Miami, Florida and a member of the Board of Directors of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers since 1995, and served as its President from 2001 to 2002. He was on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ Consumer Advisory Council from 2007 to 2009. Mr. Falk received a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

BY STEVE ROTHAUS

This year’s 30th-anniversary White Party seeks to return to its white roots: Lots of glamour and no torn shorts or T-shirts.

“Oh, no! I want this to be the highest level of formal wear so they can show their elegance,” said Jonathan Welsh, marketing and development manager of Care Resource, the agency that presents and benefits from the annual fundraiser. “A fantastic world of white.”

White Party, from 7 p.m. to midnight on Saturday, Nov. 29, also has a new outdoor venue: Perez Art Museum near downtown Miami.

“We have hundreds of international visitors who come from Brazil and France and Israel and they want to be outside,” Welsh said. “They want to see the bay, they want to see the city, they want to see Miami.”

White Party is centerpiece of White Party Week, which runs during the Thanksgiving holiday from Nov. 26 through Dec. 1.

For more than 25 years, White Party was an early-evening soiree at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens popular with thousands of middle-age gay men.

In 2010, Miami-Dade County sought nearly $60,000 to rent Vizcaya for the 2011 event and Care Resource said no.

White Party moved to Miami Seaquarium, then to a club in Wynwood. The event also shifted from early evening to late night, hoping to attract thousands of young gay men in club attire.

Results were lackluster and this year Care Resource has decided to shift back to an early-evening party it hopes will attract a more diverse audience.

“Our goal is to bring in a larger spectrum of people from Miami,” said Steve Beko, Care Resource’s events coordinator. “White Party isn’t just an LGBT event, it’s a Miami event. Something our city can be proud of.”

White Party is centerpiece of White Party Week, which last year grossed nearly $600,000 for Care Resource. For decades, the agency has been known for HIV/AIDS care, but now also provides adult primary medical care, women’s healthcare, dental and pediatric care.

“We are a federally qualified health center,” Welsh said. “White Party Week grossed $592,425 in 2013 with 86 cents of every dollar going back towards programs and services offered to our South Florida community.”

Entertainment this year will be provided by a 30-piece White Party Symphony conducted by Miami musician Sam Hyken, along with a one-hour performance by DJ David Knapp.

Returning to White Party will be drag queen Elaine Lancaster, acting as emcee for the 16th year.

“Sixteenth year in a row. Can you believe it? I’m still here honey,” said Lancaster, who has done HIV/AIDS fundraisers since the early 1980s.

“AIDS is still important, still a crisis,” Lancaster said Thursday. “People are not even practicing safe-sex anymore because they don’t think it’s a crisis. What idiots!”

Miami/Fort Lauderdale is No. 1 nationally in new HIV/AIDS diagnoses, according to recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“White Party started 30 years ago with an urgency to save lives,” Beko said. “It’s 30 years later and this pandemic is something that can be medically treated. But the urgency still exists because people are getting infected more and more in our community.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER -- For years, gay rights activists in Colorado repeatedly said it would only be a matter of time before they would be allowed to marry.

They repeated that even as they struggled for years to get civil unions passed through the Colorado Legislature. Then, less than a year after civil unions became law here on July 1, 2013, state courts began to topple gay marriage bans across the country, albeit with stays pending appeals to higher courts.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Denver struck a blow to Colorado's voter-approved gay marriage ban, calling it unconstitutional but issuing a temporary stay to give the state a chance to appeal.

The ruling could be another step toward a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the question of gay marriage bans once and for all.